Whenever Bruno speaks in interviews, he comes across as intelligent and thoughtful. On the pitch though, it's entirely the opposite. He lacks in-game intelligence, he undermines his teammates (and not in the Keano sort of way where he's trying to pull them up to improve standards), and prone to strops/dives. When things are going against us, he doesn't seem to have the strength of character/will power to try and pull things around, but rather shows emotional outbursts which does our team no good.
If it was just mental attributes then we can maybe look past it (I suppose few footballers are great personalities/leaders, just like in other industries). But the biggest problem with Bruno is his playing style. If we were a counter-attacking, set up to absorb pressure and hit teams on the counter then he's world-class in my opinion (we saw this in the first couple of seasons since he signed for us; his goals/assists were off the charts). He's great in transitions and his high volume of high risk passes/attempts mean that he's able to make an impact goal contributions wise. But he's terrible at controlling the tempo of a game (a key requirement for a no. 10 in a possession based team). He cannot hold onto the ball (doesn't have presence, ball holding skills, and can't exchange passes with teammates to retain possession). We saw a bit of that today with Weghorst in No. 10 role where he helped the team (in a small way in the first half) to retain and progress the ball with his presence (something that I've never seen Bruno do and I suspect why ETH played him wide). He always looks for risky passes because that's the only way he can create impact (and he's good at that). So for us going forward, he's a poor fit stylistically to become a possession dominant team.
In my opinion today was just the worst case scenario of what's usually the case with him. His performances and attitude in big games, not just this season but under previous managers as well (Europe League final instantly springs to mind) is proof of that. Hope I'm wrong and ETH is able to find a way to fit him into a successful team (obviously has his strengths, but also plenty of weaknesses both playing-wise and behavior-wise).
Apologies for the long post. Needed to vent a bit to get that result out of my system. Bruno was far from the only one to get blame for today (there were plenty of others such as Shaw), but him with armband stuck out like a sore thumb.
If it was just mental attributes then we can maybe look past it (I suppose few footballers are great personalities/leaders, just like in other industries). But the biggest problem with Bruno is his playing style. If we were a counter-attacking, set up to absorb pressure and hit teams on the counter then he's world-class in my opinion (we saw this in the first couple of seasons since he signed for us; his goals/assists were off the charts). He's great in transitions and his high volume of high risk passes/attempts mean that he's able to make an impact goal contributions wise. But he's terrible at controlling the tempo of a game (a key requirement for a no. 10 in a possession based team). He cannot hold onto the ball (doesn't have presence, ball holding skills, and can't exchange passes with teammates to retain possession). We saw a bit of that today with Weghorst in No. 10 role where he helped the team (in a small way in the first half) to retain and progress the ball with his presence (something that I've never seen Bruno do and I suspect why ETH played him wide). He always looks for risky passes because that's the only way he can create impact (and he's good at that). So for us going forward, he's a poor fit stylistically to become a possession dominant team.
In my opinion today was just the worst case scenario of what's usually the case with him. His performances and attitude in big games, not just this season but under previous managers as well (Europe League final instantly springs to mind) is proof of that. Hope I'm wrong and ETH is able to find a way to fit him into a successful team (obviously has his strengths, but also plenty of weaknesses both playing-wise and behavior-wise).
Apologies for the long post. Needed to vent a bit to get that result out of my system. Bruno was far from the only one to get blame for today (there were plenty of others such as Shaw), but him with armband stuck out like a sore thumb.
Neville being adamant about anything to do with United these days usually means the opposite is true.